Last Saturday evening Queen Alexandra, accompanied by the Empress Marie
of Russia, inspected ten thousand Boy Scouts drawn from London and the Home Counties on the Horse Guards Parade. The boys were drawn up in ten blocks on three sides of a square round the saluting base, the fourth side being reserved for the life-savers—Scouts decorated for saving life or other acts of heroism—and the King's or first- class Scouts, qualified to wear four badges. After the Queen had made a complete tour of the square with Sir Robert Baden-Powell and General Jeffreys, the Commissioner for London, and had returned to the saluting base, there was a charge of five thousand boys, who rushed towards the Queen's carriage shouting their patrol cries, stopping dead at a distance of forty yards from the Royal party. Finally, the Queen left the Parade between a lane of the life-savers and King's Scouts, waving their hats on their staves and cheering—a dramatic close to a stirring demonstration of the discipline and enthusiasm of this remarkable and truly national force.
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